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Tanzania 2008 Updates

Program Leaders:
Nancy Taylor and Brent Smith

September 10 | September 24 | October 10 | October 28 | November 10

First web update from Tanzania

We have had a wonderful first three weeks of the program!

On our first night we were welcomed to Tanzania at the home of a friend with a meal known to Tanzanians as “nyama choma” (i.e., meat burnt or barbeque!) that featured a whole goat (including head) roasted all day over a fire and decorated with vegetables.

The second morning we had two lectures on community based conservation.  The first from Lazarus “Babu” Liki, one of the founders of the movement in Tanzania, who introduced us to this park management approach to more directly involve local indigenous people in the management of the national parks, and to gain financially from them.  The second was from an official of the African Wildlife Foundation who gave us some very interesting details on the successes and problems of the community based approach, including some initiatives directed at Tarangire National Park, a park that is truly endangered due to the intense poaching of animals that migrate out of the park – a part of the bush meat trade that has become a major problem throughout sub Saharan Africa.  We then took off on a four day camping safari, along with Liki and our Klub Afriko drivers and cooks, to establish the background for our courses. 

Entering Lake Manyara, our first national park, we were greeted by blue monkeys.  We watched baboon troops, giraffe, elephants, and impala, while one student in each of the safari cars taught us what they had learned about the animals from our behavior book.  We took a break at the hippo pools where we did indeed see lots of hippos, hundreds of birds (including pelicans, cormorants and storks), and buffalo, gazelle, wildebeest and zebras in the background.

In the afternoon, we went with local guides on a cultural tour of the small town of Mto wa Mbu (“mosquito river”), had our first experience with Tanzania’s amazingly peaceful mixture of ethnic groups, learned about rice and banana farming, held hands with many small children, and even tasted banana beer.

Moving next to Tarangire National Park, where we camped under a huge baobab tree, we continued to learn about the ecology and behavior of wildlife and to delight in close up views of everything from the tiny dikdiks to large families of elephants. 

Many of the animals in Tarangire can only survive if they can migrate outside of the park for part of the year.  As the human population near the park has grown, and as the local Maasai have begun to turn to agriculture (in addition to their herds of cows and goats), there have been increasing conflicts between the needs of humans and wildlife.  In order to start to explore these issues, we ventured down a very long, rough road into the Simanjaro plains and to the town of Loibersoit.  There we visited with local Maasai families and, through translators, interviewed them about their experiences with, and attitudes toward, the wildlife and the nearby national park.  This turned out to be an extraordinary opportunity for students to explore the complexity of the issues involving rapidly growing human populations, changing land-use patterns, and the conservation of biodiversity. 

Our day there ended with an evening of singing and dancing with the Maasai, to the delight of both the wazungu (us) and our hosts.  We will return to this community in December for our final home-stay, and we were all glad that we didn’t really have to say goodbye.

Leaving Loibersoit we drove to a community east of Arusha, Usa River, where we are now completing our first two weeks of Kiswahili instruction.  The students have been staying with local families, their first of 5 home-stays.  Everyone is working very hard developing their language skills and learning to cook, wash clothes by hand, and bargain in the market.  Brent and Nancy delight in the stories we hear about their adventures.  The whole group went to the local market this morning as part of their Kiswahili class and returned not only with fruits and vegetables (the assignment) but also with lots of fabric, and gifts for their families including a live chicken!

Friday evening we will host a thank-you tea for our families, and then Saturday morning we are off on our next adventure – a week-long safari to Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti.

More photos of students and their host families!

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